Eco-friendly Gardening – Top Ten Tips

The world is full of serious environmental problems which rightly or wrongly, many of us feel we can't do much about. However, you can do something towards creating an eco-friendly environment in your own back yard. So why not give it a go?!

If you have a garden there are lots of ways to encourage a range of plants and wildlife in it, even if it's very small.

Below you'll find Dr Christopher Betts's top ten tips for turning your own garden into a more eco-friendly zone.
1. Have a bird table.
2. Have a pond.
3. Try to avoid slug pellets, aphid sprays, herbicides and pesticides.
4. Use a fine-mesh netted caged around fruit and vegetables to keep pests out.
5. Don’t burn – make compost!
6. Go for the greatest possible variety in your garden design and plantings. Lots of habitats and many different kinds of plants will greatly increase the richness of the wildlife.
7. Choose plants for berries, seeds and fruit as well as flowers.
8. Aim for flowers all through the year as a nectar and pollen source.
9. Put up bat, bird, insect and other boxes (obtainable from many suppliers or build your own.
10. Don’t be too tidy (wildlife needs places to live and hide, micro-habitats such as a weedy corner, hollow stems left on herbaceous plants in winter, a pile of leaves, ivy left on trees, etc.).
11. Keep a garden wildlife diary. Learn to identify the species you see and keep records.
Copyright Christopher Betts Environmental Biology 2006